


hands just reaching out for hands

by sapphicish



Category: Doom Patrol (TV)
Genre: Gen, Male-Female Friendship, Mild Hurt/Comfort, rita farr exercises her full god-given right to be the mom friend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-30
Updated: 2019-03-30
Packaged: 2019-12-26 17:51:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18287282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphicish/pseuds/sapphicish
Summary: “You must be kinder to him. He's struggling. He'salwaysstruggling, and I know you know that because you're—you're a part of him, or...orhoweverit works."Rita has a late-night craving to satisfy. She gets a late-night meeting with this stupid thing that refuses to communicate with her instead.





	hands just reaching out for hands

**Author's Note:**

> we got therapy patrol now get ready for best friends patrol

“He deserves better than this, you know.”

Rita isn't sure why she's bothering to talk to the thing inside (outside, for the time being) of Larry, she really doesn't. She knows better. The thing can't talk and it clearly doesn't even care. 

She stumbles upon it purely by accident when wandering the halls on her way to a late-night snack (a whole leftover grilled chicken reserved for her in the fridge). It's always a risk, speaking to it, though it never seems to care enough about her to do anything to her. She's glad for that and yet irritated in equal measure, because she really does prefer people to have some sort of reaction to her beyond plain indifference, even if that reaction is unpleasant. 

Larry is propped up in a corner at the end of the hall like some sort of mannequin, slumped, his chin touching his chest, and the thing is hovering nearby, just _watching._ Or waiting. Or something. Any way she frames it, she doesn't like it.

Frankly, it's rather unnerving, but Rita had followed the urge to stop and speak with it anyway, and even though she regrets that decision now, it's a little too late to take it back—mostly because _she's_ the one being watched now.

“You _do_ know that, don't you?”

No response. Not even a twitch of its radiant, flowing shape. She hadn't been expecting much else, but honestly, would it hurt for it to even just _try?_ A little? Words aren't the only possible form of communication, and yet here it is, standing—hovering—completely still, like she doesn't even exist.

Rita's spine itches with the frustration she feels building, and she steps forward, her only intent being to drag Larry back to his room so he doesn't wake up on a hard, unforgiving ground. It doesn't help that she knows that itch is one of the many, many possible signs that she might turn into a puddle of goo at any second. As the Chief had once put it: emotion is her catalyst.

But of course, before she can even think about reaching out, she's blinded, the thing filling her vision at all possible angles and corners when it moves between the two of them.

“What, you don't want me to touch him? In that case, the very least you could do is make things easier on him. He has such a terribly hard time managing you and you can't even think to, oh, I don't know, leave his body in more comfortable places, like a bed? Or even somewhere with carpet! He's _housing_ you, he's doing his very best, and all you can do is—is—“

Rita gesticulates wildly, infuriation trapped in her throat.

The thing stares, cocking its head. 

She grits her teeth. “ _Move,_ or so help me—“

She doesn't actually know how the threat will form, really, and she certainly doesn't know how she'll be able to follow up on it because, to be _entirely_ honest with herself, the thing is a little terrifying and probably entirely capable of doing something awful to her. Fortunately, she doesn't have to think about those things, because it drifts aside in an obnoxiously lazy manner.

Rita is starving, and she is tired, and she just wants her chicken and then she wants to go back to bed, but then she's dragging Larry through the manor – he's a lot lighter than he looks, almost worryingly so, but dead weight is dead weight – and grumbling under her breath, stalked step by step by the thing that floats idly behind her, bobbing in the air like some sort of twisted ghost.

“You must be kinder to him. He's struggling. He's _always_ struggling, and I know you know that because you're—you're a part of him, or...or _however_ it works. Do you just not care? Is that it? You 'save' him and you think, 'oh, well, I suppose I'll just take over his body at random times for the rest of his life and leave him miserable, because I've earned that?' Well, that simply isn't the way it works, and things have got to change!”

It's like talking to a brick wall. Or, in this case, an electrified fence all around her, bright crackling edges that run like veins of lightning in the air, making the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.

Rita huffs, turns the corner and keeps walking. “You don't even care, do you? You don't even _care_ how he feels. And you...never will, and it doesn't matter, and I don't even know if you can _understand_ me so I don't know why I'm...ugh.”

They make the rest of the way in silence, and when she stops outside of Larry's room she leaves him there, sitting up against his door. The thing lingers, still, and it's only when Rita turns to it with an expectant glare does it twitch. “Well? Go on. Get back inside of him where you belong, you...stupid... _thing._ ”

It doesn't budge. She folds her arms slowly and narrows her eyes slower, in the way that used to make people scurrying to fulfill her every demand on set, and sometimes they'd cry. (And sometimes they'd be fired for crying.) “I can stand here all night if I have to.” She resists the childish urge to stamp her foot and instead points sharply in the direction of Larry's unmoving body. “Get in. Now.”

It almost vibrates in the air for a moment, but then it loses that grit, that power, and goes easily after that, though not before raising a hand oddly in her direction. It surges into Larry's body with a suddenness that makes Rita wince in sympathy for him.

He coughs awake with a jolt, groaning and gasping, that familiar light centered in his chest burning bright for a moment before it dies down to nothing at all. Rita leans down to pat at his shoulders, squeezing warmly. “It's okay. You're all right.”

Larry's head rolls weakly against the door, and he sighs sharply, a desperate gust of air that sounds as relieved as Rita feels to see him intact and hear him breathing again. “Are you?”

Rita blinks. “What?”

“It didn't do anything to you, did it?”

“Of course not. Well, except for delaying my midnight snack, but I'll deal with that later. Up you get, dear.” Rita stands and offers him a hand, ignoring the way it shakes when it slides into hers. When they're both on their feet proper, she wordlessly wraps an arm around his shoulders in something close to a hug.

She feels his head drop briefly against her shoulder, soft bandages buried in the crook of her neck. She pats him there, between the shoulder blades and over the back of his head, gentle enough that she knows it won't hurt. She's never sure if it does anymore, but she doesn't ask and he doesn't tell and she finds it's best to take precautions anyway. It always is around here.

It lasts a while, the not-quite-hug-but-close-enough, and it's so nice that she almost regrets pulling away, but they do so at the same time and he dips his head a little before he turns to enter his room, a hand on the door as though to shut it. Instead he turns and watches her again, steady. They look at eachother for a moment, long and quiet and full of something she thinks is understanding.

Rita feels her smile drop. “You know...”

“What?”

“I think it _waved_ at me.”

Larry laughs, a little startled around the edges. “Did it?”

“It certainly seemed like it.”

“Huh,” he says, moving further into the room only she's been allowed in before, “I guess that means it likes you.”

“I'd be flattered if it wasn't so obnoxious. I don't know how you can stand it.”

She thinks she can see the bandages move – maybe he's smiling. She likes to think of that, that she's made him smile, that for a moment he's relaxed and amused enough, that maybe—just maybe—she's helping. Even if just a little.

“It's not like I have a choice in the matter. But we're working through it. I think. Slowly.”

“I'm glad to hear it.” Rita means it, and she desperately hopes that he can _tell_ she means it. It's always difficult to get her emotions across without people ignoring them or underestimating them or just plain misunderstanding them, like no one could ever believe she was someone who could be sincere, with real thoughts and real feelings and real sympathy for other people's problems.

It's her own fault, she knows that. She just doesn't like _thinking_ about it.

“Goodnight, Rita.”

Rita smiles. “Goodnight, Larry. And goodnight to you too, thing inside of Larry, even though you've been a perfect pain in my ass tonight.”

The door closes, not before she can hear Larry laughing a little. She stands there for a little while longer, breathing in and out—then, when she hears no strange noises or Larry arguing with the other part of himself, she takes her original path through the halls of the manor to the kitchen, and treats herself to two chickens instead of just the one.

She deserves it, and she'll be damned if she lets anyone make her feel otherwise.


End file.
